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The New World Order Ideology expressed in the form of neoliberal globalization has been used by numerous politicians, scholars and media men through the ages. It refers to a worldwide conspiracy to effect complete and total control over the planet through money farming. This book examines the case of Africa put directly on the chopping board as client states by this ideology - when less hampered by idealistic slogans as human rights, raising living standards and democratization - to better the achievement of the agenda of the money farmers whose goal is to establish government by loan operations. The money farmers' strategy, as in credit card companies, is to lend as much as the subject target can borrow and still pay fees, charges and interest payments. This means to encourage them to borrow, loan after loan, consolidate all other loans and keep lending - up until the crop of foreign exchange seems in jeopardy. The ideal from the Lending Agency viewpoint is to get an African country maxed out on loans to the point that it actually operates all of its government and the nation on LOANS. Once that goal is achieved, you basically have a never ending crop of FOREIGN EXCHANGE from helpless and hopeless African governments and people. Here is Tatah Mentan at his trenchant best!
Characteristically, Africans in any Western country are asked so many different questions about 'Africa,' as Westerners love to refer to the many countries that make up that huge continent, as if Africa were a single nation state. So one begins wondering why it is that Africans, on the other hand, do not refer to individual European countries as 'Europe' simply, then the trends and consequences of stereotyping begin setting in just as one is getting used to being asked if Africa has a president, or if one can say something in African. It is some of these questions that Emmanuel Fru Doh has collected over the years and has attempted answering them in an effort to shed some light on a continent that is in many ways like the rest of the world, when not better, but which so many love to paint as dark, backward, chaotic, and pathetic.
Crying in Hiccoughs
(2011)
Crying in Hiccoughs is a graphic presentation of the more realistic phase of Africa's politico-economic and historico-moral evolution in general, and Cameroon's, in particular. From the colonial to the post-independence era, the poet sees nothing worthy of praise-singing and handclapping. So, he resorts to crying in hiccoughs and invites the blind, deaf and dumb brainwashed praise-singers to join him in singing his little songs so as to expose and challenge the demagogy.
Homeless Waters
(2011)
Life in Safang could not have been more idyllic for Ngoma and Shaka, his elder sister. Under the wings of an attendant and storytelling mother, they didn't miss the father they hadn't known. Later on, in the alluvial valleys of Bonfuma and the lands beyond, Ngoma experiences the thrills and challenges of schooling and being schooled. Adolescents will appreciate his stories and struggles as he tries to reconcile his village roots with the desire for a modern education. He has special relationships with his grandfather, stepfather and teachers, and becomes captain of the college football team. But growing up with a sister does not make him understand the subtleties and complexities of girls. Whether Collette or Camille, they seem to be two sides of the same coin. Ngoma successfully manoeuvres between the two, without the slightest crisis, for a while. He seeks balance between God and girls, work and pleasure, learning and mischief. While life can be well salted, it can also be bitter. Jealousy rises and he discovers who matters and who doesn't. His life brings together the bearableness and unbearableness of belonging, of being in love and being free, of...
This is an original and innovative study of mobile phones in Africa from a theological perspective. The First and the Second Special Assemblies for Africa of the Synod of Bishops, held in Rome in 1994 and 2009 respectively, made an urgent appeal to the Church in Africa to employ various media forms of social communications for evangelization and the promotion of justice and peace. Evidently, electronic media are now increasingly used for evangelization across Africa. The proliferation of the mobile phone in Africa is a most welcome development to this end. On the basis of a thorough review of the growing literature on the mobile phone and the cultures it inspires, Goliama highlights the ambivalent nature of mobile cultures for the Roman Catholic Church's evangelization mission in Africa. He argues not only for the continued merits of face-to-face communication for the Church's pastoral approach in the African context. He points to how this could be enriched by a creative appropriation of the mobile phone as a tool for theological engagement, in its capacity to shape cultures in ways amenable to the construction of a Cell phone Ecclesiology. Such emergent mobile cultural values include the tendency of mobile users to transcend social divides, to promote social interconnectedness, and to privilege the question 'where are you?'. This informed and well articulated exploration of Cell phone Ecclesiology is thus envisaged to aid the Church in Africa to wrestle more effectively with challenges that diminish human life and promote instead qualities that are life-affirming to all categories of people in the Church and society.
Toil and Delivery
(2010)
Bill NDI's Toil and Delivery can be as playful and loaded as the clues in a cryptic crossword puzzle, which is to say that they are marked by a strange, energetic hybridity. They occupy a dynamic space between nursery rhyme and visionary Romantic verse, between the colloquial and the archaic, between postmodernity and anachronism. They are local and global, political and personal, Western and non-Western. With experiences traversing both Africa and the West, Bill F. NDI is one of those poets who gives meaning to the word globalisation. He embraces poetry as a material act in a troubled world, with poetry's power conveyed with typical irony.
A Basket of Kola Nuts
(2009)
Bold, original and stimulating in its inspirational insights, A Basket of Kola Nuts explores Cameroon's cultures as remarkable pivots of moral rectitude and such sickening vicious-circles as bribery and corruption. Ethnically grass-rooted and globalizing rather than alarmingly exotic and exclusive, this poetic diction of form-content aims at revitalizing its material contents to sever it from extinction and revamp cultural values that break the patience of silence to question deviation rather than the concrete interface of cultural identities and differences. Uprightly appealing, this poetry gathers kola seeds that fall apart in crisis to invite readers world-wide to taste its kolaly aroma.
'We cannot imagine life now without a mobile phone' is a frequent comment when Africans are asked about mobile phones. They have become part and parcel of the communication landscape in many urban and rural areas of Africa and the growth of mobile telephony is amazing: from 1 in 50 people being users in 2000 to 1 in 3 in 2008. Such growth is impressive but it does not even begin to tell us about the many ways in which mobile phones are being appropriated by Africans and how they are transforming or are being transformed by society in Africa. This volume ventures into such appropriation and mutual shaping. Rich in theoretical innovation and empirical substantiation, it brings together reflections on developments around the mobile phone by scholars of six African countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali, Sudan and Tanzania) who explore the economic, social and cultural contexts in which the mobile phone is being adopted, adapted and harnessed by mobile Africa.
In the olden days, after a day's work in the farms, children and parents returned home feeling worn out. As a sort of evening entertainment, children of the same family, compound or village then gathered round a story-teller to listen to folk tales and riddles. This was common in every African home. The listeners participate with joy by joining in the songs and choruses. Sometimes the children were given the opportunity to tell stories that they had known while the adult story-teller listened attentively in order to add more details where necessary. In telling these stories and riddles, children were expected to learn something through all those activities connected with the customs, environment, language and religious practices of their people. This book provides children with stories, riddles and some proverbs that parents ought to have told their children at home but have failed because of their present day busy schedules. Teachers will fill that vacuum at school as they guide the children in reading the stories, riddles and proverbs in their second language-English. As an instructional tool, this collection will foster literacy, promote cultural awareness and create situations where learners share with one another their personal experiences and traditions.
Patrick Tataw Obenson, alias Ako-Aya, the rabid critic, social crusader and witty journalist, all rolled up in one, was indeed a popular and widely admired pioneer in daring journalism and social commentary in Cameroon. Little wonder that when he died, he left behind countless painful hearts and many questions on the lips of his admirers. As a man of the people, the fallen hero of Cameroon's Fleet Street shared his experiences, be they good or bad, with his readers. He was a virile critic even of the sordid things in which he himself secretly indulged. Obenson's mind was open, and through his popular newspaper column - Ako-Aya - he exposed society and social action in all their dimensions. He had an axe to grind with all perpetrators of social vices, especially those of them that infringed on the rights of the common man. He gave them a good fight, using his newspaper as his only weapon - a weapon which could not be neutralized even by the most affluent nor the most coercive leadership. And he did so with nerve and valour and venom. Only Tataw Obenson could spit out really scathing pieces of satire, aimed directly at the highest governing authorities of his society. Only Obenson could make allusions even to his own apparently ugly self. Only he could be liberal and honest enough to confess how he boarded a taxi and later bolted without paying the driver. Only Obenson was able to foresee his imminent demise from the face of the earth and literarily wrote his own epitaph
This book addresses the key issues of reinstating the veritable nature of African values and most specifically those of the Bamilikes that had been discarded since Western Christianity came into contact with black Africa considered animist. This task is warranted by the malaise experienced in churches by some African Christians. This is further made necessary and even pressing by the sense failure that the first wave of evangelisation, which has proven incapable of incorporating the Words of God in the African religious belief systems. This analysis takes into account the exigencies of the present context. The media as well as educated men talk ceaselessly of globalisation and the global village. The question we should be asking is to know if globalisation can be attained without due consideration of African values. This work aims at showing the scientific, sociological and cultural bases of African values so far castigated by colonial discourse. One of the ways to make this known is to expose it, analyse it and show its importance at various levels.
The Earth Mother
(2010)
The fight against evil remains at the core of this play, pitting Kamsi and her supporters against a few daring councillors. Skilfully scripted by a renowned actor and playwright, this drama exposes the alliances and explosive tensions in Nyong village overwhelmed by unseen but supposedly harmful forces. Spiced with witty proverbs and humour, The Earth Mother will not fail to thrill its readers.
Strange Passion
(2010)
In Strange Passions John Ngong Kum Ngong's vocation and prime obsession remain constant - the soul of the nation. Passion, the central symbol in this collection is the patriotic sentiment in its various manifestations. As a self-conscious artist, Ngong summons his audacious technical dexterity to sublimate the sauciness characteristic of his style and direct it towards ideological ends. The significance of his contribution is as much in the urgency, originality and authenticity of his message as in the full range and complexity of his style, and the depth and density of his thoughts.
A remarkable feature of the collapse of the British Empire is that the British departed from almost every single one of their colonial territories invariably leaving behind a messy situation and an agenda of serious problems that in most cases still haunt those territories to this day. One such territory is the Southern British Cameroons. There, the British Government took the official view that the territory and its people were 'expendable'. It opposed, for selfish economic reasons, sovereign statehood for the territory, in clear violation of the UN Charter and the norm of self-determination. It transferred the Southern Cameroons to a new colonial overlord and hurriedly left the territory. The British Government's bad faith, duplicity, deception, wheeling and dealing, and betrayal of the people of the Southern Cameroons is incredible and defies good sense. Ample evidence of this is provided by the declassified documents in this book. Among the material are treaties concluded by Britain with Southern Cameroons coastal Kings and Chiefs; and the boundary treaties of the Southern Cameroons, treaties defining the frontiers with Nigeria to the west and the frontier with Cameroun Republic to the east. The book contains documents that attest to the Southern Cameroons as a fully self-governing country, ready for sovereign statehood. These include debates in the Southern Cameroons House of Assembly; and the various Constitutions of the Southern Cameroons. The book also reproduces British declassified documents on the Southern Cameroons covering the three critical years from 1959 to 1961, documents which speak to the inglorious stewardship of Great Britain in the Southern Cameroons. This book removes lingering doubts in some quarters that the people of the Southern Cameroons were cheated of independence. Its contents are further evidence of their inalienable right and sacred duty to assert their independence. No one who reads this book can possibly be indifferent to the just struggle of the Southern Cameroons for sovereign statehood.
What a Next of Kin!
(2010)
This psycho-anthropological and socio-cultural novel logically and succinctly x-rays the foundations and raison d'être of patriarchy through the implied questions - Is wealth the basis of patriarchy? Have women any role in the system? And how far can a patriarch protect his lineage from alien blood? The extremely wealthy father of eight daughters protagonist Ndi, says yes, to the first question; no, to the second; and in the third questions he says, through dogged pursuance of looking for a male heir by any means; but his lone son whom he unknowingly begot in a remote village in his early life and whom he accidentally stumbled upon and adopted as his heir in his odyssey of looking for a male heir through a series of marriages, says no, to the first question; yes, to the second and to the third question, he says fate is the umpire; and succeeds in convincing his father that he is right.
How else does the ramified phenomenon of greed (corruption, nepotism, extreme self-aggrandizement, megalomanic tendencies etc) become nefarious to both the physical and mental worlds of a people either individually or collectively? It brings about a retrogressing, catabatic state in their evolution in both regards, eating back into the socio-economic and political set up of a given society as well as unquestionably impairing the mindset of its people.
Bill NDI's Bleeding Red: Cameroon in Black and White is another masterpiece from a poet with a deeply political vision. This collection of poems with Cameroon as the particular focal point is a paragon of socio-political and cultural alertness in verse that will get every reader on their toes. Bill NDI's world is fraught with topsy-turvydom. It is a world darkened by experience and a keen sense of the wrongs plaguing his beloved country. He points out, without preaching, where it all went wrong, how it can, or what it will take to, be redeemed. The acerbity of Bill NDI s criticism runs from the very first poem of the collection 'Anthem for Essingang' through The Promise to the very last one 'Papa Ngando Yi Mimba for Camelun'. What a clime characterised by a 'clan of mbokos, clan of bandits' It is just natural that as they perpetrate 'death and sadness' in his beloved fatherland, nothing but 'disgrace', 'great shame', and 'repudiation' awaits them for evermore.
Each of the essays in this book is marked by a certain simplicity and clarity, a seriousness tinged with humour, masking a profundity that are unmistakably characteristic of Godfrey B. Tangwa alias Rodcod Gobata, one of the leading critical minds amongst Cameroonians. The essays are centred on the theme of democracy and meritocracy which the author believes to be the pre-conditions for genuine development in Africa. The immediate focus of these essays is Cameroon, a country remarkable for experimenting with French/English bilingualism and for having a political dictatorship which claims, wrongly or rightly, to have transformed itself into a democracy; but they are equally relevant to other countries in Africa and beyond. Each of the essays stands alone but they are all telling various aspects of the same story from various angles at various times using different modes of expression. Anyone who seeks a glimpse of understanding of the trouble with Africa and particularly with Cameroon, 10 years into the 21st century, would read this book with great profit.
Botlhodi ? The Abomination is a powerful story about British colonialism and its aftermath in Molepolole, Botswana. It is a compelling juxtaposition between Traditional Setswana ways and Christianity. The protagonist, Modiko, finds himself conflicted when both his strict father, a pastor of Motlhaoetla church, and his grandfather, an unapologetic traditionalist, expect him to choose between Setswana tradition and Christianity. Torn between the two worlds, Modiko at the end makes an informed personal decision. The road is not smooth though, as he experiences persecution, bullying, abuse, witchcraft and nightmares along the way. Other characters in the novel engage in some serious conversations that allude to some important historical developments. In this work, T.J. Pheto presents to his readers a hilarious story pregnant with themes of identity, social change, discrimination, racism, colonialism, love and, ?tradition? versus ?modernity?. This pioneering literary response to British colonialism in Botswana is an outstanding postcolonial fiction of resistance. Pheto?s humor makes the book all the more hard for a reader to put down.
The following pages, initially prepared for limited circulation in 1961, contain brief extracts and summaries of those parts of Eugen ZintgraffÍs book Nord-Kamerun (1895), of most interest concerning the colonial Bamenda and Wum Division. ZintgraffÍs book, the first by a European about the Grassfields, has not been translated and is hard to get second-hand. In using these notes the following points should be borne in mind: ZintgraffÍs knowdie;ledge of Bali (Mungaka) and Hausa was very slight, and his discussions of character, motives and political institutions are consequently superficial and open to criticisms. He had no means of checking what he was told, or thought he was told. He had no previous knowledge of any similar culture and no training in ethnographical method. He was, however, a good observer, and his descriptions of tools, dress, weapons and the like, can be regarded as fairly reliable. Finally, it must be remembered that Zintgraff wrote the book to justify his own actions and to support that small but influential section of public opinion in Germany which favoured rapid imperial expansion. A full account of the actions and motives of ZintgraffÍs opponents in the Kamerun Governdie;ment and in the Colonial Bureau of the German Foreign Office has not been written: we only have one side of the story. But there are some suggestive points made in RudinÍs Germans in the Cameroons and others referred to in these notes. What is perhaps most striking about ZintgraffÍs account is the fact that the people of the Western Grassfields were not so isolated from one another or their neighbours as might be thought. A network of trade-friendships covered the country and big men exchanged gifts over long distances. These links must be set beside the insedie;curity due to raids and slave-catching, and are well worth investigation.
We Get Nothing from Fishing : Fishing for Boat Opportunities Amongst Senegalese Fisher Migrants
(2010)
The world is regularly confronted on television and in other mass media with dramatic images of African boat migrants. Seemingly desperate, these Africans, most of them males, are willing to risk a perilous journey at sea, hoping for a better life in Europe. And, even worse, hundreds more are believed to die each year, swallowed up anonymously by the choppy waters off Africa's coast. This book focuses on fishermen who have played a pivotal role in boat migration from Senegal to Spain's Canary Islands, advancing various reasons for the fishermen's prominent role. Besides their long history of migration, their proven experience with navigating, their family's push and investment, their perceptions and ideologies about Europe, there is also their growing marginalization as a result of the deepening crisis in the Senegalese fishing sector and the inadequate policies of the Senegalese government that prevents them from having good prospects of improving their standards of living. The book provides deep insights into the meaning of boat migration, and on the effects of success or failure on the migrants and their families. It goes beyond the usual economic explanations to convincingly situate boat migration within the long-standing West African culture of migration, and highlight the significance of socio-cultural and political factors. Among the fascinating findings are the perception of migration as status enhancing and a rite de passage in the Senegalese fishing communities, and the profound roles of the extended family, social networks and, above all, religion, especially the widespread influence of the marabout. The importance of information and communication technologies in sustaining transnational networks is equally highlighted.
Snatched from the Grave
(2010)
Black Caps and Red Feathers
(2010)
In Black Caps and Red Feathers the reader is taken into Creature's subconscious on the garbage heap where he is tenant, and where he recounts his multitudinous and gruesome experiences in Traourou's underground prisons. Ancestral Earth, set within a traditional African background, indicts Akeumbin, the king and custodian of the earth of Allehtendurih, who is caught in the dilemma of stopping a plague caused by the reckless exploitation of the earth and showing affection for his fiftieth bride. In compliance with the Princes of Earth, the women who are the principal victims, bring pressure to bear on the King who condescends to the urgency of appeasing the Ancestral Earth. The common denominator in both plays is communal grudge against irresponsible leadership and its fallouts of indiscriminate victimization that allow for the anticipation of a new or renewed consciousness.
Education of the Deprived is a perceptive socio-artistic examination of the key works of some major writers of Anglophone Cameroon literary drama today. For over two decades now socio-political developments in Cameroon, including the liberalization of the press, have led to an unprecedented proliferation of political, journalistic and imaginative writings. Availing themselves of their new-found freedom of expression, Cameroonians in general are forcefully articulating their views more than even before, and creative writers, in particular, are artistically recording intimate and painful experiences in the on-going endeavour to make sense of the socio-political environment; they are mapping out, through images and symbols, the peculiar contour of the collective Cameroonian soul. What observers have noticed, with regard to Anglophone Cameroon imaginative writing, however, is that there are few significant critical works to match the burgeoning creative literature. While in the 1970s there was a cry concerning the scarcity of imaginative works by Anglophone Cameroonians, the complaint now, at the turn of the 21st century, is that there is a dearth of critical literature capable of catapulting, on to the international literary scene, the Anglophone Cameroon literature being written. This book covers both traditional and modern drama as written by Anglophones, lays bare the technical differences between the two dramatic traditions, and brings out the central themes developed by these committed dramatists.
Anxiety in Mosaic
(2010)
Anxiety In Mosaic is a sum up of a man's fears and hopes into a volume of poetry; anxieties that span a cross section of the human phenomena of greed (in ramifications) and the resultant socio-political, economic and environmental consequences; the repercussions of worsted governance, feminist, ecological, emigrational and imperialist concerns, presented from the perspective of a philosophical questioning. The charm of these thoroughly vocal, finely-crafted poems not only lie in the quasi-compendious multiplicity of subject matter but also in their creative and innovative re-chartings.
The Moogo, the region of the Moose - known as 'Mossi' in ancient literature-occupies the entire central zone of Burkina Faso. It is divided into several kingdoms, the principal one comprising today's capital of Ouagadougou. Along with the singing griots, the evening storytellers pass on the ancestral word during the evening gatherings where they provide the group with models to follow. The folktale is the most appropriate form for teaching young children to express themselves, to structure their thoughts, and to reason. The tales portraying familiar animals will be reserved for the group of youngest children. The legendary gluttony and foolishness of Mba-Katre, the hyena, in contrast with the cunning and finesse of Mba-Soamba, the hare, will interest above all children from 10 - 12 years of age. The stories describing the origin of things, the reason for various social taboos, the legitimacy of social functions and structures, as well character flaws that need correcting, are reserved as a priority for adolescents.
Cameroon is rich in petroleum, minerals, tropical forests, wildlife, water systems, fertile lands, and much more. Paradoxically however, most citizens live in abject poverty and without jobs, potable water, electricity, good healthcare and roads. This book is a thoughtful interrogation of some of the structural factors driving persistent poverty in Cameroon in the midst of natural resource abundance. It engages in a multidimensional critical analysis of the impact of natural resources on basic development indicators and concludes that good resource governance and sound management are the missing link. Natural resources alone will not create socio-economic prosperity void of good management with a clear development vision and strategy in Cameroon. The book assembles a wide diversity of analysis, views, perspectives and recommendations from economists, development experts, social and political scientists, on Cameroon's current development inertia. What emerges in the end is a coherent interdisciplinary analysis of the natural resource-development paradox as it plays out in an African setting. Theories and good practices from Africa and beyond are systematically applied to identify and critique present policy and management approaches while providing alternative options that can unlock Cameroon's natural resource wealth for national prosperity.
The Crabs of Bangui
(2010)
Every man lives for himself, using his freedoms to attain his personal aims, and feels with his whole being that he can at any moment perform or not perform this or that action. The higher a man stands in the social scale, the more connections he has with others and the more power he has over them, the more conspicuous is the predestination and inevitability of every act he commits. Upon this philosophy, a former banker, Hansel Bolingo, suddenly finds [or makes] himself the regional representative of a Chinese firm that deals in crabs in Bangui. This catapults him into a position of instant wealth. His mouth-watering affluence draws immediate attention while his hypnotic powers cause hundreds of [not-so-honest]citizens to clamour for shares from which he builds up a huge fortune. But he soon discovers that he cannot deceive everybody all the time.
Reading through the Charcoal Industry in Ethiopia : Production, Marketing, Consumption and Impact
(2014)
Studies in many African countries show that charcoal making is among the primary drivers of deforestation and subsequent land degradation. In the case of Ethiopia, charcoal is produced from state-owned (public) forests and woodlands. There is little regulatory intervention from the government side. Moreover, production is more traditional and the producers have little idea that charcoal can be produced efficiently with modern technologies. Although charcoal meets significant portion of urban households' energy needs in the country, and also support the livelihood of tens of thousands of rural households, it hardly attracted the attention of policy makers and development agents. A good majority of urban population who use charcoal on regular basis doesn't seem to know how charcoal is made, from where it comes, and its adverse environmental impacts. In cognizant of the potential environmental impact of charcoal production and marketing in the country, FSS commissioned this study with the objective to understand the environmental, social and economic implications of charcoal production, marketing and consumption in Ethiopia with aim to generate/increase awareness among the general public and incite a policy debate among concerned key stakeholders.
The major objective of the research is to produce evidence-based knowledge on the social and economic impacts of labour migration by looking at the challenges and opportunities of Ethiopian labour migration to the Gulf and South Africa. On the one hand, international migration from Ethiopia could be considered as an aspect of development problem. The major push factors that forces Ethiopian migrants to the Gulf and South Africa are economic/developmental problems ranging from lack of employment opportunities to wage differentials. On the other hand, international migration could be considered as an important resource that could be tapped for accelerating socio-economic development. At the general level, this research aims to examine the successes and failures of policies and institutions in realising the potentials of international migration for socio-economic development of the country and minimizing its adverse impacts. At the same time, the growing problem of illegal migration will be examined.
The introduction of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in middle and low income countries is arguably one of the most meaningful outcomes recorded in the fight against HIV and AIDS. A record number of some 6.2 million people living with HIV and AIDS are reported to be benefiting from the treatment, which is reported to have risen by 19 per cent between 2010 and 2011 and as a result of this, the region has also enjoyed a significant decline in AIDS mortality. This volume is the outcome of the 'call for abstracts' put out by OSSREA in 2011 for senior researchers, social scientists and practitioners to write scientific articles on issues surrounding ARVs. The volume contains eight chapters organized into four sections: ART and quality of life; Adherence to ART; Traditional medicine and ART; and Sexual behaviour of ART attendants. The chapters are contributed by Academics and researchers from three different African countries: four from Ethiopia, two from Uganda and two from Zimbabwe.
Most of the papers in this book were presented during the 9th International South Sudan and Sudan Studies Conference of the Sudan Studies Association USA and the Sudan Studies Society UK. 150 scholars from numerous academic disciplines, experts in conflict transformation and development, staff of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), former and current senior officers from ministries and military institutions from Sudan, South Sudan, and seventeen further countries participated in the conference. They engaged in vivid discussions on historical and recent cleavages in the societies of Sudan and South Sudan, inequality and exclusion in numerous variations, and on rapid social change accompanied by urbanisation and land conflicts. The severe economic crisis following the separation and the importance of creating political solutions instead of using technical approaches to work on the multitude of challenges affecting each of the two countries and the interrelations between them were also scrutinised. The participants intensely exchanged views and experiences on the difficulties and successes in taking responsibility rather than being dependent on foreign assistance. Discussions revealed strong potentials in both societies to overcome such problems; to initiate processes of reconciliation, and to consolidate peace. They shed light on the complex processes of nation-building and the creation of meaningful constitutions. This book attempts to capture at least some of this multitude of insights and aspects that had shaped the conference.
Milestones in Green Transition and Climate Compatible Development in Eastern and Southern Africa
(2015)
It is widely recognised that climate change poses significant serious threats to sustained economic growth and agricultural development, poverty reduction, food security and political stability globally. Nowhere are these challenges more marked than in Africa where two-thirds of all available land is classified either as desert or dry land, in relation to which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2013) has classified the continent as the most vulnerable to climate change variability. This anthology is a product of a call from OSSREA to collate evidence based researches in a book in a bid to assess how far countries in eastern and southern Africa are implementing the UNFCCC, Rio+20, Agenda 21 and other global and Africa-wide decisions concerning the need to address climate change. This will contribute to post-2015 development agenda for sustainable development goals (SDGs), in which climate change and disaster risk reduction will be priority areas of focus. We hope this book will serve as a valuable tool for experts, advisers and policymakers in pursing effective green growth policies and practices and achieving climate compatible development and in doing so inspire readers to choose a more sustainable pathway for humanity. It will also help in looking at climate change as both a challenge and opportunity for development. Further, this book aims at stimulating more research in climate compatible development and climate financing which have put most countries at crossroads.
The impact of international migration, both South-South as well as South-North, on the economic, social and political life of the people in Eastern and Southern Africa [was] not well documented and studied,- and 'the evidence-base for policy on migration and development [was] very weak.' With this in mind, OSSREA's invitation to conduct a study on international migration in Africa had the following objectives: To analyze the nature and type of South-South migration, focusing on issues, such as brain gain and/or brain drain, remittance flows, technical know-how transfers, violations of the right of African migrants and gender dimensions of migration; To investigate the dynamics of migration from Eastern and Southern Africa to the Arab Gulf States as well as to developed countries, focusing on the skills of migrants, brain gain and/or drain, remittance flows, technical know-how transfers, violations of the rights of African migrants and gender dimension of migrants; and to assess the successes, impediments and challenges of African international migrants from Eastern and Southern Africa and to formulate policy recommendations to maximize the gains and minimize the costs associated with international migration in Africa.
Dictated by overall (economic, social, political, technological, etc) realities that unfold at different times, the growth and development dictums have been reshaped and reframed continually, in an effort to accommodate and respond to emerging issues. Within the overarching theme of sustainable development, human development and inclusive growth and development are, for example, among the recent focuses of the global and national development agenda. The backdrop to this is that as individuals, communities, and societies get richer, the worrying levels of inequalities, exclusion and disparities are becoming an area of concern, drawing the attention of governments, planners, civil societies, researchers and academia. An overarching current issue has been an appreciation of high economic growth in the last 10 years, but which is marred by pervasive levels of poverty and inequality. Indeed, Africa, through Agenda 2063, has acknowledged the need for inclusive and sustainable development, as is also the commitment of the Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030) of the United Nations.Edited by Prof. Herman Musahara, this anthology entitled Inclusive Growth and Development Issues in Eastern and Southern Africa presents issues, challenges and progress in Rwanda, Mauritius, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Uganda. The issues covered include: trade; rural-urban linkages; the dynamics of poverty, vulnerability, and welfare; social policies for inclusive and sustainable development; productivity and informality; and financial direct support systems to the poor. The chapters are based on first-hand data, secondary data from different databases and systematic reviews of academic literature. Drawing on the findings and conclusions of the individual chapters, the book distills together the key lessons and also puts forth recommendations for policy and practice. As such, it is a good reading for researchers, policy and decision makers, academia and graduate students.
A Practical Guide to Understanding Ciyawo has been developed over fourteen years and systematically explains for the novice the important aspects of Ciyawo grammar for effective communication. A practical grammar guide, the instruction is accessible, giving the basics of pronunciation, to building verb tenses, to ways of combining the different elements of the language in order to form sentences.
The early missionaries brought Christianity from the monogamous West to the polygamous societies of Africa. Were the missionaries right in demanding that converts dismiss all but one wife? Was this the demand of the Christian faith or of Western civilization? And were the converts right to dismiss their wives though they had married them according to the laws of the land? And who asked the children if they wanted their mothers to be dismissed and may or may not be married to another man? The book argues that while polygamy is an African reality, it is below Christian moral standards. However is stopping converted polygamous men and women from baptism best practice if we believe that sin can be forgiven for the one who repents? Can the shedding of responsibility for wives and children be made a precondition for such forgiveness?
The Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in Eastern and Southern Africa have been at the forefront to developing new energy policies and programmes aimed at reaching the UN goal of Ensuring Access to Clean Energy for All by 2030. In the year 2006, the East African Community passed the EAC Strategy to Scale Up Access to Modern Energy Services, committing its Member States to reach the UN goal of -access to all- by 2030. The Inter-governmental Authority for Development adopted its Environmental and Natural Resources Policy in 2007 which includes issues of renewable energy. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa launched its Model Energy Programme in 2012, followed the same year by its comprehensive baselines database on renewable resources covering all its Member States. In the year 2009, the African Union General Assembly at its 12th Ordinary Session adopted the Policy on 'Scaling Up Renewable Energy in Africa'. The regional policies have been domesticated by Member Sates of the RECs. Although their targets are very ambitious, implementation programmes launched at national level are robust and producing results. Both in the policies and implementation programmes, gender issues have, however, not featured prominently. Noting this deficit, the Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa called for researchers to assess the extent to which energy policies in Eastern and Southern Africa have taken gender issues on board. This book is the product of that project. It has ten chapters that investigated the gender-energy nexus in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Swaziland, Sudan and Kenya. The book will prove useful to all policy makers, researchers and analysts who may be interested in strengthening the gender content of the programmes as we move towards 2030. We believe it triggers and helps policy makers and researchers to create platforms to use its findings, and those of others, to see how in gender terms those at the bottom of the energy access pyramid can be factored into these programmes, to make sure they are not left behind.
The Rwandan justice system know as Gacaca, originally preserved by word of mouth was revived, documented, tested and used successfully to handle millions of legal cases in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi. This monograph begins by depicting the general picture of customary law and ponders on the practical challenges in the production of the modern Gacaca law in three versions: Kinyarwanda, French and English. The author demonstrates that translation involves language use and transfer, as well as communication within a cultural setting. The book amply demonstrates that linguistic, textual, contextual and cultural cues in translation should not be downplayed. It also shows that the cultural turn in translation has transformed and re-conceptualised the translation theory to integrate non-western thought about translation discipline since time immemorial. A major theme within the book is that teranslation as a mediating form between cultures and contexts should not overlook cultural differences because language is a marker of identity.
Over a century much of Africa south of the Sahara embraced the Christian religion. Malawi, where 80% of the population identify as Christian is no exception, nor are the Ngonde at its northern border with Tanzania. While it is difficult to find someone who does not claim to be a Christian, African traditional religion is by no means dead and often practiced by many. While the two religions are not 'mixed', but they are both realities in many a Christians life, though realities of a different kind. The author explores the intricate and often varied relationship between the two and considers factors which increase or decrease dual religiosity.
This book presents an African Christian movement full of vitality and creativity. The reader will meet believers who drink milk so that they may dream about angels, reports about funerals where the mourners dance with the coffin on their shoulders and church members who are ritually not allowed to fertilize their fields or wear neck ties. The author?s unique insight into Malawi?s Christian community addresses important issues in society. Why have ?Spirit Churches,? including Pentecostalism, been so successful in Malawi? Why do some religious groups still refuse medical help, up to the point that children die of cholera? How did the independent churches deal with the colonial trauma? In this masterful portrait, Strohbehn takes the reader from industrial mine compounds to rural colonies, where churches have set up their own spiritual and political rule. He carefully dissects the fine lines between traditional notions and Christianity?s influence. We find a spiritual portrait of the Ngoni people, a fascinating cultural analysis of dancing and an encounter with a unique style of preaching.
Innovations in Achieving Sustainable Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa addresses roles and issues related to social and institutional innovations and approaches in food security in Southern and Eastern Africa. They include implementation of food security policy, rural livelihood and agricultural innovation, land consolidation for food security, interdisciplinary school-based health for food security, harnessing indigenous and modern knowledge for food security, household food resource handling for food security, institutions for technological innovation, role of land tax in food security, trade protectionism and food security, and gender-power relations in food security.
Science and Spirituality
(2016)
Science and Spirituality is an attempt to highlight the spiritual potential within the recent and on-going discoveries in both the science of the quantum world and the science of the larger cosmos. Science is now confirming what the mystics of former ages taught us. Somehow, these mystics, through silence and meditation, were able to discern and touch deep truths about what existence means. Abstract Algebra, which was once perceived as purely abstract with no practical application, is now at the heart of explaining existence within the quantum world. Thus mathematics, science and spirituality are just different faces of the same reality. This small booklet 'Science and Spirituality' merely introduces different aspects of this one reality which the author hopes to develop in more detail in further booklets.
In this book Klaus Fiedler offers a candid critique of religious faith healing claims - a critique that extents to the Voluntary Male Medical Circumcision Campaign (VMMCC). The book reveals the lack of substantive evidence to back such healing claims and the contradiction between the VMMCC claims and the consequences of those claims in sexual health and practice.
When African Theology was first formulated, women played just a small role. In 1989 Mercy Amba Oduyoye set out to change this by creating the Circle of Concerned African Theologians in order to them a voice. The Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians is an African Baby, born in an ecumenical surrounding. Though there were other movements addressing the issue of gender inequalities in church and society, circle theologies are distinct from other women's liberation movements in that they are theologies formed in the context of African culture and religion. This book traces the Circle history from 1989 to 2007.
Homosexuality is a cross-cutting challenge to Malawian society with theological, socio-cultural, economic, legal, political, and human rights implications. This book argues that the solution to the homosexuality debate in Malawi does not lie in either the criminalization or decriminalization of homosexuality; neither does it lie in homophobia nor heterophobia. However, the solution to the homosexuality debate lies in achieving a harmonious co-existence of both heterosexuals and homosexuals by practicing mutual tolerance. The book concludes by suggesting various activities to be taken by: The Government of Malawi; Gay Rights Activists; Religious Leaders; Traditional Leaders; and Malawian Society to ensure the aforementioned tolerance and understanding is encouraged.
The volume constitutes Klaus Fiedler's crowning contribution to scholarship. Essays in the first half of the book focus on Malawian Christianity and how contrasting Powers, Gospel and Secular, engage each other, creating social, political and cultural conflict in the process. In the second half, Fiedler examines general missiological themes. These essays provide a broader missiological background, offering a theoretical framework necessary for appreciating the essays in the first half. He concludes with a chapter that reviews selected seminal books on themes under study. Throughout the volume Fiedler applies the 'restorationist revival theory' he constructed in The Story of Faith Missions, an earlier 1994 work putting emphasis on non classical missions and churches, not systematically covered in earlier scholarship. This volume, the first of its kind on Malawian Christianity, will long remain an indispensable text for those interested in Missiology and Malawian Christianity.
Some scholars classify the Last Church of God and His Christ under the ecclesiastical-cultural bloc known as African Indigenous Churches (AICs). David Barret has divided the world's Christians into seven major ecclesiastical blocs. However, there are many large churches and denominations which do not define themselves under any of these three terms, and often reject all three. As far back as 1549 (Japan) and 1741 (USA), new types of Christianity have emerged that do not fit readily into any of these preceding six major blocs. These consist of denominations, churches and movements that have been initiated, founded and spread by black, Non-White or non-European peoples without European assistance, mainly in the Global South, but also among Black and Non-White minorities in the Western World. The African Indigenous Churches fall under this category. The aim of the book, is to examine the history of the Last Church of God and His Christ International in Malawi from its beginning (1916) through the years and to portray a picture of its current existence in its various branches: What developments and changes have taken place over the years? What has been the relationship of the church to African culture? How has the church grown or expanded? Has the church been able to maintain its unity? And what has been the relationship of the church with other churches?
Reading these tales from Northern Malawi readers come close to watching an original performance and the tales and the songs encapsulate the essence of Malawian culture. The authors presentation, using performance directions, allows the reader to see and hear old Nyaviyuyi as she, through word, voice, tone and gesture, mocks nosy wives, and celebrates the devotion of friendship and parental love. The author has made a further contribution to the topic by including musical notations for the songs.
It was not the European and American churches which evangelised Africa, but the mission societies. The missions from the Great Awakening such as the London Missionary Society and Church Missionary Society, or the Holy Ghost Fathers and the White Fathers, which started the process of Sub-Saharan Africa becoming a Christian continent are well known and documented. Less known, and less documented are the interdenominational faith missions which began in 1873 with the aim of visiting the still unreached areas of Africa: North Africa, the Sudan Belt and the Congo Basin. Missions such as the Africa Inland Mission or Sudan Interior Mission gave birth to some of the big churches like ECWA in Nigeria and Africa Inland Church in Kenya. It is the aim of this book to describe faith missions and their theology and to present an overview of the early development of faith missions insofar as they touched Africa.
The missionary work of the Seventh-day Adventist Church started in Southern Malawi in 1902, and histories of churches are usually told from that starting point. This book uses a different approach, it tells the story of Lunjika Mission (earlier called Mombera Mission) which begins in 1932, showing how the SDA Church met a new culture, that of the strongly patrilineal Ngoni and their neighbours to the North, and how it dealt with other churches that had started missionary work in that broad area up to two generations before.
Exile and the disruptioon of the exilic period are prominent features in scholarly reconstructions of what influenced the shaping of biblical books and the development of theological thinking. The Babylonian golah community, as an exilic community, is credited by a growing number of scholars with influencing large parts of the Hebrew Bible. This study addresses the question whether the redactions show signs of an exilic mindset (first generation exiles) or are better understood as a reflection of a diaspora mindset (second/third and subsequent generations). This study also reviews all known archaeological diaspora findings from Mesopotamia in the pre-Hellenistic period (aided by insights from Elephantine) in order to build an as comprehensive as possible picture of Jewish diaspora life in Mesopotamia.
Handwell Yotamu Hara (*1942) was an ordinary boy from a village in Mzimba in Malawi. Though his parents were illiterate he was inspired through education and faith to become a primary school teacher and also earned a PhD from Pretoria University and later became a lecturer at Zomba Theological College and ?nally at Mzuzu University. This small autobiography is just one offered as part of the ongoing commitment by Mzuni Press to encourage Malawians to read meaningful books on a range of subjects reflecting their countrys society and culture.
In this remarkable volume covering diverse subjects, in a span of three decades, Kenneth R. Ross articulates his views on the meaning and practice of Christian mission and challenges the binary view of mission that prevailed before the 1950s. He further reflects on Scotland's experiences in the world-wide Christian mission and demonstrates the centrality of Africa in any discourse on Christianity. This volume is invaluable in its argument for a rethinking of Christian mission especially in relation to the West, which is now a new frontier for Christian mission. The book will be immensely beneficial to students of missiology and general readers who are interested in the subject of Christian Mission.
Labour Law in Namibia
(2012)
Labour Law in Namibia is the first comprehensive and scholarly text to analyse labour law in the country, the Labour Act of 2007, and how it affects the common law principles of employment relations. Concise and extensively researched, it examines the Labour Act in detail in 16 chapters that include the employment relationship; duties of employers and employees; unfair dismissal and other disciplinary actions; the settlement of industrial disputes; and collective bargaining. Over 500 relevant cases are cited, including court rulings in other countries, and comparative references to the labour laws of other Commonwealth countries, notably South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and the United Kingdom, making it a reference and comparative source book for common law countries in the SADC region and beyond. Written by an authority in the field of labour law, this is a unique reference guide for key players in labour relations, including teachers and students of law, legal researchers and practitioners, human resource and industrial relations practitioners, employers and employer's organisations, employees and trade unions, public servants and public policy advisors, and the academic community internationally. In clear and uncomplicated English, the book is accessible to professional and lay people. A comprehensive list of contents, tables of cases and statues, bibliography and index, assist the reader.
Otuzo twOvaherero
(2017)
Otuzo twOvaherero provides valuable information on Ovaherero patriclans and records folklore and praise poems in Otjiherero. Previously, these did not exist in written form. The book attempts to preserve these oral traditions before they disappear. It aims to restore pride to the Ovaherero, particularly in patrilineages that were displaced by the Ovaherero-German war of 1904-1907. Otuzo twOvaherero is structured around the Ovaherero patrilineal descent system (otuzo) which is the basis of the Ovaherero religion Oupwee. The surnames and homesteads that belong to the same patrilineage are grouped together under each patriclan to help the reader to easily trace the homesteads that belong to one patriclan (and thus have a common ancestry). The distinct features of each patriclan are specified in terms of totems, taboos, patriclans which collaborate, and praise poems of homesteads. All the patriclans and praise poems in this book were collected from Ovaherero communities living in Namibia. The author uses the term Ovaherero to include the various groups which speak the common language Otjiherero and which include the Ovahimba, Ovaherero, Ovatjimba and Ovambanderu. This book has the potential to promote unity within the Ovaherero community by showing how families are connected in lineages which trace back centuries.
Administrative Law: Cases and Materials is an important and comprehensive contribution to the legal literature on Namibian law. It will contribute to the development of Namibias jurisprudence. Experienced author and judge of the Namibian High Court, Dr Collins Parker discusses key principles of administrative law applicable to Namibia under the common law as developed and broadened by article 18 of the Namibian Constitution. To support propositions of law discussed in the text, he presents carefully selected extracts of judgments delivered in important cases. The book offers a rich source of judicial pronouncements as precedent that are not readily available to many students and teachers of law. The selected cases are from the superior courts in Namibia, South Africa, England, and Canada, all common law countries. There are also footnote references to cases from other common law countries like India, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Practitioners of law at the Bar or on the Bench, law researchers and other professionals in public authorities, including parastatals, private companies and other ord this book useful in the performance of their professional tasks.
The Lie of the Land
(2017)
The Lie of the Land is a novel set against the background of the German colonial wars in Namibia in the early 1900s. The central character is an academic in linguistics who occasionally acts as a British agent. He is a cynical, private individual who sees himself as a neutral observer but is eventually forced to take sides when he witnesses the atrocities of the Herero and Nama genocide and, above all, meets a young Nama woman who enchants him. The novel explores the shifting nature of the oppressor and the oppressed. Despite the unfolding tragic events, the story is lightened by surprising bursts of humour, and is ultimately a love story.
Understanding Policy Domains, their Salient Forces, and Organisational Challenges examines the complexity of policy making processes within the context of human action arising from culture, life necessities, and politics. It provides an understanding of human, environmental and institutional behaviour, and identifies the policy factors that underline the success or failure of governments and institutions. This book provides policy-makers, practitioners and other researchers in the field with a clear understanding of the process of policy-making and who is responsible for what. It sets the tone for academics and policy practitioners to confront the problems and challenges that countries face as they seek to improve governance and service delivery. The author provokes debate on the cause and effect of past, present and future human actions, bringing into play the issues of honesty, transparency and political will. He promotes policy as a way towards achieving social harmony in the human struggle for survival. User-friendly for both students and lecturers, as well as for researchers, government and NGO policy 'gurus', Understanding Policy Domains, their Salient Forces, and Organisational Challenges is also valuable for political parties whose members are often unaware of this important aspect of government responsibility.
Democracy and Education in Namibia and beyond debates the educationdemocracy nexus in Namibia and the southern African context. It defines and explores the meaning of democracy and related concepts. It also looks at what democracy means in the context of human rights and access to education. The ten chapters in this collection interrogate the strengths and limitations of education as an instrument of social change and question whether or not the Namibian educational objectives and practices do develop and help to sustain a democratic culture in Namibia. The authors in the collection have drawn material from their own teaching and research experience across the fields of education and social science in Namibia and beyond, and present their findings in a pedagogical framework suitable as a challenging text for tertiary students. At a time when education is in crisis, especially in South Africa where strident calls for free tertiary education and Africanisation of the curriculum are spreading like wildfire, this book gives scholarly insight into the history and social conditions that gave rise to our current predicament.
Taming My Elephant
(2016)
In Oshiwambo, the elephant is likened to the most challenging situation that people can face. If an elephant appears in the morning, all planned activities are put on hold and the villagers join forces to deal with it. For Tshiwa Trudie Amulungu, the elephant showed up on many mornings and she had no choice but to tame it. Growing up in a traditional household in northern Namibia, and moving to a Catholic school, Amulungus life started within a very ordered framework. Then one night in 1977 she crossed the border into Angola with her schoolmates and joined the liberation movement. Four months later she was studying at the UN Institute for Namibia in Lusaka Zambia, later going on to study in France. Amulungu recounts the cultural shocks and huge discoveries she made along her journey with honesty, emotion and humour. She draws the reader into her experiences through a close portrayal of life, friends and community in the different places where she lived and studied in exile. This is a compelling story of survival, longing for home, fear of the return, and overcoming adversity in strange environments. It is also a love story that brought two families and cultures together.
Re-Viewing Resistance in Namibian History brings together the work of experienced academics and a new wave of young Namibian historians - architects of the past - who are working on a range of public history and heritage projects, from late nineteenth century resistance to the use of songs, from the role of gender in SWAPO's camps to memorialisation, and from international solidarity to aspects of the history of Kavango and Caprivi. In a culturally and politically diverse democracy such as Namibia, there are bound to be different perspectives on the past, and history will be as plural as the history-tellers. The chapters in this book reflect this diversity, and combine to create a remarkable collection of divergent voices, providing alternative perspectives on the past. Re-Viewing Resistance in Namibian History writes 'forgotten' people into history; provides a reading of the past that reflects the tensions and competing identities that pervaded 'the struggle'; and deals with 'heritage that hurts'.
The Namibian Constitution entrenches fundamental rights and freedoms, and provides for their vertical and horizontal application in any criminal process. However, since Independence in 1990, Namibia has developed its own criminal jurisprudence. Criminal procedure and law are taking new shape. Namibian courts have pronounced on criminal issues, and legislation has been passed to keep up with the demands, aspirations, spirit, and vision of the Namibian Constitution and its people. CLEVER MAPAURE, NDJODI NDEUNYEMA, PILISANO MASAKE, FESTUS WEYULU and LOIDE SHAPARARA have written an invaluable book that deals with these developments. It explains the rights of individuals, the duties of law enforcement officers, and the procedures of the courts in criminal cases. The Law of Pre-Trial Criminal Procedure in Namibia introduces readers to the fundamental principles and values underlying Namibian criminal law, through a systematic examination of the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977 (Act No. 51 of 1977) as amended, which was originally passed by the legislature of South Africa, and still regulates criminal procedure in Namibia, the amendments to it since 1990, and relevant Namibian Case Law. The book captures and discusses the law relating to the pre-trial criminal process in Namibia in detail, from the roles of the prosecutor and the police, search, seizure and forfeiture, interrogation, notices and summons, arrest, court appearance, bail, criminal charges, disclosure, diminished capacity, right to assistance, to pleas and plea-bargaining.
Writing Namibia: Literature in Transition is a cornucopia of extraordinary and fascinating material which will be a rich resource for students, teachers and readers interested in Namibia. The text is wide ranging, defining literature in its broadest terms. In its multifaceted approach, the book covers many genres traditionally outside academic literary discourse and debate. The 22 chapters cover literature of all categories in Namibia since independence: written and performance poetry, praise poetry, Oshiwambo orature, drama, novels, autobiography, womens writing, subaltern studies, literature in German, Ju|hoansi and Otjiherero, childrens literature, Afrikaans fiction, story-telling through film, publishing, and the interface between literature and society. The inclusive approach is the books strength as it allows a wide range of subjects to be addressed, including those around gender, race and orature which have been conventionally silenced.
Ruminations of Ipome
(2014)
Breadth taking in range of subject explored and profound in depth of emotions evoked, this collection of poems chronicles different shades of emotions resulting from personal loss and love, as well as celebrates and critiques issues of culture, nature, place, people, ethics, and politics. The language is luminous and honed by refreshing and suggestive imagery.
Elizabeth Stirredge's spiritual autobiography is a treasury of spiritual wisdom which paints all that which is needed to be a faithful servant of the Lord Jesus Christ and how God in His might works, transforms, and supports an ordinary soul to lead the life of extraordinary faithfulness. The text highlights Stirredge's intimate conviction as well as that of early Quakers. This translation is a welcomed venture because this is a central piece, deserving of much more attention than that which has been accorded to it until now.
Bites of Insanity
(2015)
In this collection of poems Nsah Mala casts a critical compassionate gaze at the predicaments in the lives of present day Cameroonians. The poet lambasts power abuse in Cameroon and Africa. He decries the lost glory of traditional values sacrificed at the altar of ingratiation and materialism. Insalubrities are condemned, ignorance and its ramifications satirised, and wanton destruction of the environment indicted. With a fascinating richness of imagery, Mala conveys the disillusionment, bitterness and traumas of ordinary Cameroonians - young and old - debased with impunity by the lethal and sterile grip on power of the high and might. The moral depravity and human frailties mused about in this exceptionally compelling collection have no room in Mala's paradise of Cameroon.
African Cultures, Memory and Space is an impeccable volume that powerfully grapples with a gamut of cultural heritage issues, challenges and problems from a vista of inter- and multi-disciplinary approach. The book, which is designed as a foundational text to the study of culture in ever-changing environments, makes an important argument that the dynamism of culture in highly globalised societies such as that of Zimbabwe can be studied from any perspective, but most importantly through careful examination of cultural elements such as memory, oral history and space, among others. While the book makes special reference to Zimbabwe, it profoundly and audaciously dissect and cut across different geographical and cultural spaces through its penetrating interrogation and scrutiny of different issues commonplace in many African contexts and even beyond. The book, written by scholars from different backgrounds and orientations, should appeal to scholars, researchers and students from various disciplines which include but not limited to Cultural Heritage Studies, Policy Studies, Social-Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, Development Studies and African Studies.
Cell phones and the Internet have been the recipients of in-depth research on their increased and rapid integration into everyday life and the innovative appropriations associated with them in many societies. The cell phone has attracted particular attention in its perceived abilities to both enhance and destruct social relationships. Our increased access to social media and to the cell phone has taken social networking to an unprecedented level. These communication technologies are revered by many as great, all-purpose, all-positive communication devices in spite of their flaws. They are overwhelmingly bestowed with agency and superiority. Too often, they are idolized with little regard to how they affect and are affected by their users on a personal level. The mutual shaping between technology and society is not adequately acknowledged. Technologies, in spite of the seemingly endless possibilities offered by their many functions, can quite literally be sterile and useless objects outside of conscious and tangible human effort. Cell phones and the Internet, though undoubtedly capable of providing myriad beneficial opportunities for their users, need at long last to be put in their place. This book is a contribution in that regard. Kindled by her own intimate history with her cell phone and a growing curiosity about ICTs in general, this book is a culmination of Crystal Powell's thoughts, reactions to and interpretations of some of the literature on these technologies. The book draws on and critically reviews contributions by some leading authors on the social shaping of ICTs and social media to offer a more nuanced and complex understanding of technology in relation to those who use and are used by it.
Unmasking Social Science Imperialism : Globalization Theory As A Phase Of Academic Colonialism
(2015)
Contemporary social science is a product of the capitalist world-system and Eurocentrism is constitutive of the geoculture of this system characterized by the parochiality of its universalism, assumptions about the superiority of Western civilization and imposition as the sole theory of global progress. The creation of these structures of knowledge, specifically the institutionalization of the social sciences, is a phenomenon that is inextricably linked to the very formation and maturation of Europe's capitalist world system or imperialism. There is therefore nothing that is natural, logical, or accidental about the institutionalization of the social sciences. These Europeanized structures of knowledge are imposed ways of producing knowledge of the world. This Eurocentrism of social science has justifiably come under increasingly vigorous scrutiny, especially in the period since 1945 with the formal decolonization of Africa, Asia, and much of the Caribbean. This book forcefully argues that if social science is to make any progress in the twenty-first century, it must overcome its Eurocentric heritage that has distorted social analyses and its capacity to deal with the problems of the contemporary world and embrace other non-Western funds of knowledge production.
Tiger in an African palace collects eight essays about kinship and belonging that Richard Fardon wrote to complement his monographs on West Africa. The essays extend those book-length descriptions by pursuing their wider implications for theory in social anthropology: exploring the relationship between comparison and historical reconstruction, and questioning the fit between personal, ethnic and cosmopolitan identities in contemporary West African nations. In an Introduction written specially for this Langaa collection, Richard Fardon retraces the career-long development of his preoccupation with concepts of identification and transformation, and their relevance to understanding West African societies comparatively and historically.
This study raises awareness to the emergence of a new genre in world literature?hybridized literature. It rejects the assumption according to which literatures written in less commonly taught languages should be subsumed into one universally accessible global idiom. Instead, Vakunta challenges literary scholars and readers of literature to regard untranslatability as the key to cross-cultural engagement. The book?s multiple approaches and innumerable sources generate complex interdisciplinary connections and provide an excellent introduction to a complex literary phenomenon alien to literati resident outside the officially bilingual multicultural and multilingual Republic of Cameroon.
Day and Night in Limbo
(2014)
With humour, insight and irony, Lonkog recounts the joys and contradictions of daily life in a Northern Cameroon village. Living in Carrefour Poli in Northern Cameroon was never easy. How far will one have to go for drinking water during the dry season? Will there be money for kerosene to fill the lamp tank? For batteries for the torch? For a bowl of corn to make 'fufu' for the family? Will there be a night encounter with the poison of a snake or scorpion? The man of Carrefour Poli imagines when he last had a bottle of beer and when he will next have another. Children sit in class staring at the teacher, while their work suffers. People sit under trees for shade only to cut them down for firewood. Ministers run up and down, working very hard and sweating, but little changes. Day and night people turn around on the same spot. It takes a long time to build a nation. Everything is in limbo.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Third World governments prescribed and imposed a certain kind of journalism variously called 'objective' journalism or 'development journalism'. They understood this as journalism restricted to reporting 'facts' as dished out by their propagandists and did not tolerate the questioning of government policy. By 'development journalism', they meant the mere reporting of government efforts to provide services, amenities and infrastructures and the singing of praises anytime a bridge was inaugurated, irrespective of whether it was well-built or whether the contract to build was awarded according to the norms of transparency and probity. This one-sided journalism was prevalent especially in state-owned media and media practitioners in the few private news publications that existed who did not toe the line were subjected to constant harassment and incarceration. However, with the coming of well-trained journalism graduates into the scene in the 1970s and the advent of global liberalization in the late 1980s and 1990s, daring journalists like Sam-Nuvala Fonkem thought it was time to take the bull by the horn and start taking a more critical look at government pronouncements, matching policy statements with real action in the field; in short, moving from 'objective' journalism to interpretative and investigative journalism. This collection of Sam-Nuvala Fonkem's writings is a sampling of the fruit of that new spirit to dare where angels hitherto feared to tread, to hold public officials to account and to expose the falsehood cached behind the political masquerade of the ruling class.
Kids: Africa in Childhood Poetry powerfully conveys the wishful thinking, imaginations, experiences and critical reflections of children as they grow up. The volume grapples with a wide range of topics, sensations, encounters, emotions, imaginations and vistas commonplace in the psyche of many children across different geographical and cultural spaces. While the audacity of Mawere's poetry finds its basis in the poet's profound ability to uncover a multi-layered journey of childhood to adulthood, its merit lies in the character building, psychological, axiological and pedagogical lessons it imparts in today's youths: it teaches the youths the values of moral rectitude, critical observation and thinking, and careful questioning and reflection. This is a collection for all parents, teachers and the youths of between ages 5-18 who cherish a world ruled by peace and unconditional love of all by all.
Working for Cameroon state-owned Radio in the 1970s and ?80s meant toeing the official line and learning not to sing out of tune. While the rather scanty private press that existed at the time was subject to prior censorship, a different kind of censorship ? self-censorship prevailed at the Radio where topics for commentaries were vetted by the Minister of Information or his delegate. But for Anglophones working in a predominantly francophone environment, once topics were approved, the authorities could not be sure which direction commentaries were going to take as the journalists applied the tactics of ?bite and blow?, sometimes giving full expression of their Anglo-Saxon spirit of debate and critical analysis as evidenced in this selection of commentaries from the Sunday morning commentary programme, ?Cameroon Report? (now ?Cameroon Calling?) of the late 1970?s up till 1986. It is a showcase of the irrepressible seed of freedom of expression that Anglophone journalists were imbued with and demonstrated at a time when subjects related to coups d?état, human rights and governance were considered taboo. It was and shall remain the indelible input of the Anglophone character that has had a positive influence on Cameroon?s media landscape.
The Clash of the Titans and Other Short Stories is a sundry, marvellous collection of short stories that reflect and capture diverse life experiences. Mabeza and Mawere offer with great dexterousness a snapshot, richness, and practical potentialities of childhood to adulthood experiences in shaping, inspiring and influencing moral rectitude, industriousness and determination. This is an incisive and invigorating exposé steeped in candour and earnestness. For aficionados of creative writing, cognoscenti, students and instructors of English Literature, this is a collection to enjoy and cherish.
Kpewi Durorp is the third attempt at bringing Durorp into the public domain, and is a more detailed introduction to the language. It contains sixteen chapters which address important elements of grammar, with some including mini bilingual dictionaries, with words organised not alphabetically but thematically, with the singular aim of facilitating learning and easy acquisition of the language. Durorp is an interesting and linguistically distinct semi-Bantu or Bantoid language spoken by a minority group of people known as Bororp or people of the Kororp ethnic group. A part of this ethnic group inhabits the Southwestern part of Cameroon while the other occupies the Southeastern tip of Nigeria. A minority group, Kororp has continued to suffer not only cultural and socio-economic shrinkage but also linguistic marginalisation characterised by an obvious erosion of some key elements of the language. Like any other language, however, Durorp has borrowings from languages such as Efik, Ejagham, and even English. There is a Durorp-English Dictionary to facilitate the development of Durorp vocabulary (Langaa, 2013).
A Troubadour's Thread
(2013)
This volume powerfully conveys the pilgrimage of a singular spirit through adversity, equanimity, immanence and eventually, transcendence. It grapples with a range of emotions, topics and sensations. Christopher Okigbo achieved similar results but in an entirely different manner. Okigbo's vision is epical in its dimensions while Osha's work is infused with a sustained lyricism, mutedness or even more appropriately, quietude. Osha's poetry unveils a multi-layered journey from artistic infancy to complete aesthetic maturity. Most of this journey dwells upon the poet's inner states in which vast geographical vistas are revealed.
The Kenyan population is highly concentrated in urban centres, leading to increased social, economic and environmental strains, with a significant percentage of urban dwellers living in sprawling slums. Urban development is increasingly a major focus, especially in the fight against urban sustainability problems. There is little practical orientation in the academic literature for the growing gap between the rich and poor. Current literature is enormously concerned with resource use and environmental pressures, paying scant attention to the nexus between urban sustainability and empowerment of the urban poor. This book initiates debates on the segment of urban population often referred to as 'the bottom of the pyramid (BOP)', by analysing the microfinance innovation following evaluation of the impacts of access to microfinance and financial training and the implications to urban sustainability in Kenya. The main conclusion reached is that microfinance has an instrumental role to play in promoting sustainable urban development as it supports social welfare improvement and increases the livelihood of participants, business development and urban sustainability to a certain extent, thereby empowering the urban poor in contributing to poverty alleviation.
Building on Fossungu's earlier works, and essentially providing Africa with original, critical, and multi-level analyses of the trio of globalization, democracy, and national determination, this book theorizes that African states have to unite in order to have any impact in the global economy. Using the failure of the Cameroon Goodwill Association of Montreal (CGAM) as a case study, the book urges Africans to make hard choices and avoid politickerization and midnight politics in favour of fossungupalogy (that is, the science of straightforwardness, necessitating the fearless looking at truth straight in the eye). The questions of the book are many but do all boil down to whether or not Africans fear the truth and do not therefore do politics. It is amazing that Africans in the West live in societies where fierce political competitors do embrace each other after one has defeated the other; but they are incapable of looking their so-called friends in the eye and saying, for example: 'Man, I think you've totally gotten it wrong this time.' Such comportment defines politickerization or negative competition. While attempting some possible responses to the numerous queries it raises, this book basically proffers the science of Four-Eyesism as a discipline that all African schools need to institute and make a compulsory subject: if the vandalized continent would have to be awakened to its realities. This book is rich in Fossungu's dazzling capacity to invent, define and use a multitude of new terminological constructs informed by African experiences.
Duce Kingdom
(2013)
Duce Kingdom is a compelling mythical story of magic, sacrilege and violence, written in fine-styled first and third person dialogue and narration. The story commences with the rage of darkness into the official inauguration of the king, amid popular frustrations with the rigid laws and traditions of the kingdom. Sacrifice of virgins to gods, wars, romance and beheadings of criminals, make the future uncertain. The birth of Zalinda, a powerful sorcerer, redeems the kingdom from its woes.
This book is an opportune warning that alienation, estrangement and intentional diminishment serve as a cancer upon those who disburse it. The outsider suffers by being alone; the insider suffers even more by being forever known as a hypocrite who perpetuates dystopia. It uses literature as a hothouse for poisonous potted plants, the workings of a mind in turmoil and the exploration of a society or societies that seems to derive pleasure from others' ruin. Fears, Doubts, and Joy of Not Belonging considers themes that are biblical in scope from different societies and historical epochs. It is a sobering spiritual enlightenment of a child's 'silent treatment' in adult form. The text complements language engineers and social scientists who are on a quest or search for how the individual responds to pressure that is unexpected, ill-conceived and in desperate need of alleviation. Not only does this particular type of cancer differ from the type a surgeon can treat, the stage at which this malady is diagnosed causes far more problems than if it were dealt with head on. Pursuing numerous examples of estrangement, this diverse text delves into a wide spectrum of human behavior while coming to the realization that these problems are universal and have been with us for a long, long time. The purpose of resistance, individuality and personal identity is to rise above these obstacles without losing hope, resilience or optimism.
Population growth and the drop in the returns from the major cash crop (coffee) for small farmers are the main drivers that have influenced the farming systems and mobility of farmers in the Western Highlands of Cameroon. The main objective of the research that led to this book was to determine the interactions between farming systems and human mobility in this region of Cameroon. A comparative study was conducted through household and field surveys in three villages and conceptualized based on the systems approach. The different types of mobility were influenced by household social factors, the quest for 'high valued' farm plots and hired labour. Urban-rural migration contributed to occupation diversification and social mobility. The sustainability factor was a function of land use intensity, intensity of off-farm inputs, the household adjustment factor and mobility of the household. The sacred groves were rich in plant diversity of varied ecological and economic importance. Nitrogen mining was common at all levels of the farming system. These determinants and types of mobility claims are pertinent to the research area; the sustainability results of the farming systems reflect the reality on the ground; the nutrient flux evaluated at the crop and farm levels constitute a valuable database for future research.
This book aims at educating parents generally but divorcing or divorced ones specifically. The instruction is that the future and interest of the children, whatever the cause of their separation (or calculations for the non-divorcing others), should always be the prime mover for whatever arrangement (or decision) they make. That the world would be a better place if people generally look at the larger picture of things; larger picture people usually being better suited to give children, without definitional distinctions/exclusions, a better future than what they themselves have, irrespective of the societies they live in. The book's concern for the future of children also draws from the fact that social work departments, with enormous powers over the making or ruining of children's future, are often staffed by persons with contrary ideals to those these departments stand for. Africa and Canada are specifically examined but its messages apply across the globe; lessons dished out from both perspectives of a parent and a child who has been through it and seen it all and would not want other children/parents to go through similar experiences simply because of funny definitions of family or of child, classifications often exclusively geared toward making readily available resources for educating children unavailable to some children. There also is much apprehension about some parents' blatant use of children for accomplishing their own selfish agendas to the total disregard of the future of said children who, paradoxically, do not even feature in their new un-African and un-Canadian definition of family.
This is a study on the creative appropriation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by mobile Africans and the communities to which they belong, home and away. With a focus on Cameroonian migrants from Pinyin and Mankon who are currently living in Cape Town and the Netherlands, this book examines the workings of the social fabric of mobile communities. It sheds light on how these communities are crafting lives for themselves in the host country and simultaneously linking up with the home country thanks to advances in ICTs and road and air transport. ICTs and mobilities have complemented social relational interaction and provide migrants today with opportunities to partake in cultural practices that express their Pinyin-ness and Mankon-ness. Pinyin and Mankon migrants are still as rooted in the past as they are in the present. They were born into a community with its own sense of home, moral ethos and cultural pride but live in a context of accelerated ICTs and mobility that is fast changing the way they live their lives. Drawing on this detailed ethnographic case study and related literature, Henrietta Nyamnjoh argues that while ICTs continue to enhance mobility for those who move and for those who stay put, they have become inextricably linked in forging networks and reconfiguring existing ones. Contrary to earlier studies that predicted radical social change and the passing of traditional societies in the face of new technologies, ICTs have been appropriated to enhance the workings of existing social relations and ways of life while simultaneously pointing to new directions in ever more creative and innovative ways.
Boundaries and History in Africa : Issues in Conventional Boundaries and Ideological Frontiers
(2013)
This book compromises 26 well-researched essays in honour of Professor Verkijika G. Fanso, who retired in 2011 after over 36 years of distinguished service at universities in Cameroon. Contributors include colleagues, former students and close collaborators in Cameroon and beyond. Contributions cover a wide range of issues related to the contested histories, politics and practices of boundaries and frontiers in Africa. These are themes on which Fanso has researched, published and taught extensively, and earned international recognition as a leading scholar. The book explores, inter alia, indigenous and endogenous practices of boundary making in Africa; as well as colonial and contemporary traditions, practices and conflicts on and around frontiers. In particular focus, are disputed colonial boundaries between Cameroon and its neighbours. Issues of intra- and inter-disciplinary frontiers, politics and cultures are also addressed. The volume is crowned by a farewell valedictory lecture by Fanso. Like Fanso and his rich repertoire of publications, this bumper harvest of essays is without doubt, truly immortalising.
In Nzarayapera's village, famine and hunger strike as rain could not fall. The sky remains blue with scorching heat that leaves no creature desiring to move on with life. Chief Nzarayapera and his councillors believe this scourge is a curse from the ancestors. They think of holding a ceremony to mollify the ancestors and petition rain. The ceremony is held, but nothing happens except that hunger and famine strike even harder. This sets a fertile ground for conflict between traditionalists, Christians and scientists who lay blame on one another and take turns to intercede for the people. What comes out of this conflict only requires you to read Rain Petitioning for yourself. Equally there to awaken your curiosity is Step Child, the second play in this collection.
In the last two decades, erosion in the quality and effectiveness of education systems especially in sub-Saharan Africa has been compounded by factors - such as exogenous pressures precipitated by unsystematic provision of foreign aid - fostering corrupt practices, inadequate teacher training and limited deployment of professional educators to under-served communities. Yet, quality education is needed to attain high levels of critical thinking, analytic interpretation, academic creativity, innovativeness, effectiveness, personal and inter-personal skills in problem solving. This book, which focuses on Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, critically reflects on primary, secondary and tertiary education in Southern Africa with a view to explore the opportunities, constraints and challenges that practitioners, learners and other educational stakeholders face in their daily lives. The book draws on the findings from the aforementioned countries, to advance the thesis that education in sub-Saharan Africa faces problems of epic proportions that require urgent attention. Hence, the primary objective of this book is to serve as a drive and medium for informed change, critical thinking, constructive analysis, synthesis and evaluation of different situations, settings and problems situated in the interface of theory and practice in the education fraternity.
The Travail of Dieudonné
(2008)
Dieudonnes life is spun from the threads of one of Africa's grand moral dilemmas, in which personal responsibility is intertwined with the social catharsis occasioned by ambitions of dominance and ever diminishing circles. We encounter Dieudonne at the tail end of his service as 'houseboy' to the Toubaabys, a patronising expatriate couple. In the company of a lively assortment of characters and luring music at the Grand Canari Bar, Dieudonne recounts his life. As he peels layer after layer of his vicissitudes, he depicts the everyday resilience of the African on a continent caught in the web of predatory forces. Yet, this enchanting failure also celebrates the infinite capacity of the African to find happiness and challenge victimhood.
Forty Acres and a Mule
(2013)
These traveler's impressions across cultural and psychological spaces portray the two sides of this coin called life, oftentimes belligerent toward each other. In casting light on that dream of total freedom and the daunting contradictions inherent in its being and attainment, they represent a dialectic in our seemingly unending journey toward the shadow of the good life as we ceaselessly jettison virtue against vice. At a level, they confront a certain tyranny of thought, in more ways than one, challenging us to go beyond the comfort of our ideas and our upbringing and to dare to look at the world in ways hitherto only dreamed of. Another way this challenge is portrayed is in regard to language and the cannons of poetry. Because literary writing in this so-called global society may rightfully be considered as war by other means, the reader will quickly observe the, literally, take-no-prisoner approach embedded in many of the pieces the generalized despondency on the ground and the unprecedented cacophony of voices in the 'global village' calling for nothing less. The general conclusion of these poems would be the deferment promise of living even as they constitute a heightened harkening for us to live beyond existence.
This book draws on the case of the Shona and other Bantu people of Africa to argue that names are not mere identity tags. Names are an important cultural symbol of the people who give and bear them. The book challenges linguists and other social scientists to pay particular attention to the significance of names in the study of language use in society. Equally, it demonstrates the importance of names as part of the distinctive repertoire of Shona cultural heritage. Each Shona sentential name is a statement about that reality of being Shona. Carried in each name are sentiments that reflect on prevalent social, economic and political relations. The book focuses in particular on social names, religious names and war names inspired by such events as Zimbabwe's war of liberation.
Cameroon Anthology of Poetry
(2013)
In this carefully thought-through anthology, Bole Butake brings Cameroonian poets of different generations, gender, regions, backgrounds and interests into conversation not only among themselves but more especially with poets from other parts of Africa and the world. This is a testament on the universality of poetry. It is an invitation for those in tune with poetry to reaffirm its magic and to spread the warmth of its embrace in celebration of a common and boundless humanity.
This book draws on the perspectives of non-migrants and urban youth in Bamenda, in the Northwest region of Cameroon, as well as on the views of Cameroonian migrants in Switzerland, to explore the meaning and role of New Media in the negotiation of sociality in transnational migration. New Media facilitated connectedness serve as a privileged lens through which Cameroonians, home and away, scrutinise and mediate sociality. In this rich ethnography, Bettina Frei describes how the internet and mobile phones are adopted by migrants and their non-migrant counterparts in order to maintain transnational relationships, and how the specific medialities of these communication technologies in turn impact on transnational sociality. Contrary to popular presumptions that New Media are experienced as mainly connecting and enabling, this study reveals that in a transnational context in particular, New Media serve to mediate tensions in transnational social ties. The expectations of being connected go hand in hand with an awareness of social and geographical distance and separation.
This collection dissects post-independence Cameroon as a representative postcolonial junction. The history that assists in the writing of the poems is a necessary background to understand the dislocated vision of an erstwhile independent territory. After a patriotic pastime of sweeping every bit of rubbish under the carpet of national unity for over fifty years, the collection summons us to introspect on the consequences of feeding and living on a national lie. It is only after such reflection that, hopefully, remedial gestures can offer 'new dreams on the dawn of new sleep'.
It is common knowledge that development without security is like a runaway horse. Yet, development in Africa has been plagued by insecurities since the extractive periods of slave trade and colonialism. In spite of political independence and the euphoria of sovereignty as states, Africa has failed to address insecurity, which continues to loom large and to threaten aspirations towards truly inclusive and sustainable development. A consequence has been Africas development naivety vis-à-vis the monopolisation of development by the predatory elite actors of the global North and their local facilitators. To salvage the continent from such predation and the insecurities engendered requires novel and innovative imagination and praxis. This book draws from both the haunted landscapes and bitter memories of past exploitations and from the feeding of the insatiable North with African resources and humanity. It brings together essays by a concerned generation of scholars driven by the urgent need for radical decolonisation of African development and its legacies of insecurities. It is handy to students and practitioners in economics, policy studies, political science, development studies, global and African studies.
Born Nude
(2019)
Born Nude is philosophical poetry that explores myriad themes, from equality to humility and environmental consciousness. It is divided into chapters that pinpoint specific areas of interest. The author delves into human weaknesses and strengths based on nature and nurture. He invites the reader to contemplate the ephemeral nature of all things material, and how to nurture oneself into a higher order and loyalty of being human. The volume's satirical tone is critical of the destructive sterility of zero-sum games of superiority and dominance. It treats as anathema exploitation based on contrived hierarchies of gender, geography, politics and the geopolitik of the modern world.
The ever growing disparity in living standards between the developed and developing polities constitutes a striking feature of life on Planet Earth. This publication is an attempt to highlight some of the factors dividing the worlds apart. A new North-South synergy is needed in creating a balanced world at peace with itself. As long as more than half-the population of the world go to bed hungry there can be no peace. A sting rich world and a sting poor world cannot cohabit peacefully. How to build a more equitable and balanced world is the challenge facing us. We need to embrace and practice our long-aged concepts of 'ubuntu', 'harambee' and 'batho pele' among others in creating, and consolidating the new world order. Africa is underdeveloped. It requires serious structural modification in our current mindset, thinking and actions which calls for total involvement of every citizen. The ideas advanced in this book are strategies and pathways for dealing with the problems of poverty, corruption, the distribution of power, deterrence, good governance, health, human capacity building and the challenge of bringing about a systemic structural-functional governance construct for the African continent.